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Feature Story, December 4th, 2008 _______________

 La Familia Latina Unida, December 1st, 2008 _______________

Family Unity Campaign Leading Pressure for Immigration Reform in the first 100 days

December 1st, 2008

The campaign to stop the separation of families, which formed in 2001 after the arrest of Elvira Arellano, has moved to a new level in recent weeks and now spearheads the drive for an immediate moratorium and immigration reform in the first hundred days of the new Congress and the new President.

Emerging from the Ya Basta Coalition, which formed with over 60 organizations in Chicago before the Democratic Convention to demand immigration reform, the family unity campaign moved quickly after the election to put the issue of the separation of families on the national agenda.

Under the leadership of Congressman Luis Gutierrez a mass congressional hearing was organized at St. Pius church in Chicago’s Pilsen community, inviting U.S. citizens with undocumented members of their family to come forward and give the details of their cases and explain the emotional and economic impacts of their threatened separations.

Following moving testimony, over 450 families sat down with trained volunteers to record the facts surrounding their family situations.

Congressman Gutierrez has taken these cases to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Caucus has formally requested a meeting with President elect Barack Obama and has met with key Democratic leadership in the Congress.

Propelled by the compelling issue of U.S. citizens facing the deportation of their wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, Gutierrez is optimistic both about a moratorium, now formally supported by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and a streamlined immigration bill which would focus on 1) family unity, 2) legalization of the 12 million, 3) acceleration of visas and 4) an acceptance of e-verification only if linked to a far reaching legalization program.

This focus would leave troublesome issues such as border control and guest worker programs to be negotiated separately in the context, perhaps, of new approaches to trade agreements like NAFTA.

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